Tensing every muscle in his body, his strength gathered like a tightly wound steel cable.
One charge, two charges, three!
The build-up of power reached its limit. With a force that seemed capable of snapping the handle in his hands, Altaïr let out a great shout and swung down the iron pickaxe.
"Clang!"
The tip of the pickaxe struck the rock face, and the immense recoil sent it bouncing high into the air.
Altaïr desperately tightened his grip to keep the pickaxe from flying out of his hands. Even so, the force that traveled up the handle sent him staggering back several steps, and he nearly twisted his back.
Sajji stared at him, speechless. "What are you doing, meow?"
Altaïr lowered the pickaxe, shaking his hands, which were numb and aching from the impact. "Practicing my Charged Slash on the side."
Sajji glanced at the iron pickaxe Altaïr was leaning on, its tip already slightly bent. "Are you a fool, meow? How many iron pickaxes did you bring, meow? If you keep using it like that, they'll all be broken long before you gather the ore you want, meow!"
"...Right."
Altaïr looked at the damaged pickaxe in his hands, then at the exposed mineral vein on the rock face.
It turned out that, compared to swinging the pickaxe normally, smashing it with a Charged Slash offered no real advantage. It barely widened the cracks in the vein, and it was exhausting, hard on his joints, and even harder on the pickaxe.
Altaïr had no choice but to abandon the 'training method' he had come up with on the spur of the moment and go back to swinging the pickaxe with normal force.
"Clink! Clink! Clink!"
"Hmm, to save energy, the rhythm of the swing is key. I wonder if that has something in common with the Perfect Rush?" Altaïr stopped swinging and muttered to himself.
Sajji couldn't take it anymore. He leaped up and kicked Altaïr's thigh. "Focus on mining, meow! If you don't respect the pickaxe and the ore, they won't reward you with anything good, meow! Save the training for the training area back in the city, meow!"
"...Alright."
Faced with Sajji's stern glare, Altaïr could only cast those distracting thoughts from his mind and focus on the mineral vein before him.
The crisp, rhythmic sounds of striking metal rang out once more.
Soon, a fist-sized piece of Machalite Ore rolled down, along with many fine stone fragments. Sajji got down on the ground and carefully collected them.
He didn't miss the tiny shards containing metal, either. Whole, high-grade ores were relatively rare, but if they collected enough mineral fragments, the workshop could help smelt them.
"See, meow! You only get good stuff when you focus, meow!" Sajji held the deep blue ore in his paw up to Altaïr's face.
Altaïr nodded and continued to clink and clank away.
From this open-air vein, they managed to collect two pieces of Machalite Ore, a few chunks of Iron Ore, and some scattered Earth Crystals. It was a decent haul.
If they could find three or four more similar veins, they would have just about accomplished their main goal for this trip.
After packing the ores away, the man and cat continued their search for the next suitable mining spot.
As they were walking, Sajji suddenly stopped. He tugged on the hem of Altaïr's clothes, signaling for him to halt.
"Did you find something?" Altaïr immediately lowered his body and asked in a whisper.
"Look over there, meow!" Sajji pointed dozens of meters away, to the shadows on the sunless side of a rock wall. Two dark yellow creatures were quietly clinging to the vertical cliff face, seemingly asleep.
They were about two meters long (official data: 295cm), with very flat bodies, like elongated shields.
The thick carapaces covering their bodies faintly reflected a metallic luster, and one could sense their hardness just by looking at them.
These were the targets of their subjugation quest, Konchu, a very peculiar type of small Monster.
Though not particularly fierce or dangerous, they were an annoying creature that gave hunters a major headache.
Their hard carapaces possessed astonishing defensive power. Forget his Hunter's Dagger; even high-level weapons would have a hard time breaking through them in one go.
Besides swinging the pair of semicircular chelicerae on the front of their heads to bite at targets, they would also curl their bodies into a ball and roll back and forth to ram into enemies.
This rolling attack was not slow and made almost no sound. Normally, it wasn't hard to dodge.
But imagine this: you're in the middle of a heated battle with a large Monster. At a critical moment, a Konchu that has no quarrel with you suddenly rolls out from some corner and slams right into your lower back.
Countless hunters had suffered greatly for this, ending up severely injured, defeated, or even killed.
They would sometimes climb onto other Monsters and cling there motionlessly. From a hunter's perspective, it was as if the Monster had gained several impenetrable pieces of armor, inexplicably ramping up the difficulty of the hunt.
What gave the Guild the biggest headache was that the Konchu lacked natural predators. Among all known creatures, only the Yian Kut-Ku was confirmed to prey on them.
But Yian Kut-Ku also ate earthworms, insects, fish, and shellfish; they didn't specifically hunt the tooth-jarring Konchu.
What's more, there were no Yian Kut-Ku distributed in the desert region around Loc Lac. To prevent the Konchu from overrunning the area, the Guild would periodically post quests to recruit hunters for cleanup, treating them as typical pests.
The only fortunate thing was that as long as one knew the right method, these small Monsters weren't difficult to deal with. Even a novice like Altaïr could do it with ease.
"Sajji, keep a lookout on our surroundings."
"Okay, meow."
Although the intel indicated no signs of large Monster activity nearby, it was always better to be cautious. After giving this instruction, Altaïr strode toward the two Konchu clinging to the rock wall.
He made no effort to hide his presence, and the two Konchu should have noticed him, but they didn't leave the cliff face they were resting on.
This was because instinct, evolved through countless years of survival of the fittest, told them that staying put was the best strategy for dealing with an enemy.
But this time, they had clearly miscalculated.
Altaïr approached one of the Konchu. He didn't draw his weapon; instead, he took out his iron pickaxe.
But he didn't swing the pickaxe to strike it. Instead, he moved closer to the Konchu, inserted the tip of the pickaxe into the gap between its carapace and the rock wall, and then pried with force.
The Konchu was pried off the rock wall and fell onto its back on the ground, wriggling helplessly.
A Konchu's carapace was exceptionally hard, but its abdomen was extremely soft and vulnerable. Altaïr drew his Hunter's Dagger and plunged it straight down.
"Scree–"
Watching the thick, green body fluid gush from the wound as the Konchu twitched and gradually went still gave him a strange sense of satisfaction.
"Time for the second one." Altaïr put away his Hunter's Dagger and picked up his iron pickaxe again.
As a beetle-type monster, the Konchu wasn't very intelligent, but the screech of its kin before death and the smell of blood alerted it to the danger.
It voluntarily released its grip, dropped from the rock wall, and curled its body up as fast as it could. By the time it hit the ground, it had already become a large ball sixty to seventy centimeters in diameter, with no openings.
Altaïr pursed his lips, put away his iron pickaxe, walked over, and gave the balled-up Konchu a kick.
The enraged Konchu immediately started rolling. It quickly spun around and charged toward him.
"Be careful, meow!" Sajji, who was on lookout duty, shouted a reminder. "Getting run over by that really hurts, meow!"
How he knew that was anyone's guess.
If he had encountered a rolling Konchu like this while fighting other Monsters, it would have been quite troublesome. But now, with the Konchu as his only opponent, there was nothing more to say.
Just as the rolling Konchu closed in and was about to hit him, Altaïr braced his shield and slammed forward, stopping the rolling ball of a bug in its tracks.
The Konchu seemed to have been stunned by the impact, its tightly curled body loosening slightly.
Giving it no chance to curl up again, Altaïr rushed forward and thrust his Hunter's Dagger into the gap in its loosened shell, then twisted the hilt forcefully.
Having suffered a grievous wound, the Konchu could no longer maintain its curled-up posture, and its body unfurled.
Altaïr casually followed up with another stab, finishing it off.